Ramonia “Monin” Jiménez Rodríguez came to live in the La Clark barrio of Chicago on La Salle near Division Street in the mid-1950s. Ms. Jiménez Rodríguez attended mass at Holy Name Cathedral and St. Joseph. She became involved early in the Council...

Rosa M. Hernández grew up on Orchard Street in Chicago. Like many of the Puerto Rican women of that era, she grew up sheltered while boys were free to stay out late and roam the streets. Ms. Hernández was the neighborhood store errand girl, it was...

Juan Rodríguez was a member and leader of the Jovenes Nobles social club in San Salvador, Puerto Rico, where he was born and raised. Mr. Rodríguez later followed other family members to Aurora, Illinois where he worked for many years at the...

Obed López-Zacarias is founder of the Latin American Defense Organization (LADO), that organized for a caseworker union and for the dignified treatment of welfare recipients at the Wicker Park Welfare Office of Chicago. LADO was also instrumental...

Modesto Rivera is a Young Lord raised in the La Clark neighborhood, Lincoln Park, and with the Hillbillies of Chicago’s uptown. Mr. Rivera was a strong community organizer and door-to-door precinct worker. He has worked in many political campaigns,...

Eugenia Rodríguez is the mother of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. She is the youngest of 13 children and was born in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico to Juan Rodríguez and Victoria Flores. They then moved to the Morena section of the barrio of San Salvador,...

Francisca Medina lived for many years in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. She describes visiting with other Latinas on the streets of Lincoln Park, at laundromats, and in the large variety of Puerto Rican owned shops in the 1950s, a time when...

Eugenia Rodríguez is the mother of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. She is the youngest of 13 children and was born in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico to Juan Rodríguez and Victoria Flores. They then moved to the Morena section of the barrio of San Salvador,...

Eugenia Rodríguez is the mother of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. She is the youngest of 13 children and was born in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico to Juan Rodríguez and Victoria Flores. They then moved to the Morena section of the barrio of San Salvador,...

Eldelmira Cruz is from San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico. She migrated to the Chicago Lincoln Park neighborhood in 1969 and lived right by the People’s Church. Her memories of her early days in Chicago include the work the Young Lords were doing as they...

David Mojica is a very important, unsung hero in the history of Puerto Ricans in Chicago. He has volunteered his services in Humboldt Park. Mr. Mojica has been the head of the Cocineros union for many years, helping to provide jobs and distributing...

Carmen Trinidad’s family arrived in Lincoln Park in the 1950s. She was one of only a few Puerto Rican families to attend St. Michael’s Church in those days, although the neighborhood had already become heavily Puerto Rican. She recalls her...

Antonio “Maloco” Jiménez Rodríguez has no qualms about admitting that he was the Vice-President of the notorious Hacha Viejas, or Old Hatchets, of the 1950s and 1960s in Chicago. He was a World War II veteran with a lot of heart.

Benedicto Jiménez is the son of Toribia Rodríguez and Miguel Jiménez. For Mr. Benedicto Jiménez, the importance of family and neighborhood ties became especially clear once he was in Chicago. There, Puerto Ricans faced the same hardships and so...

Ana Encarnación is from the San Juan metropolitan area of Puerto Rico and describes growing up there in the late 1930s and 1940s. She arrived in Chicago in the 1950s, settling in Old Town, along the border dividing Old Town from neighboring Lincoln...

Alfredo Matias is the son of Doña Carmen García and a Young Lord going back to the mid-1960s. Mr. Matias joined the Young Lords during the Month of Soul Dances at St. Michael’s Church Gymnasium in Lincoln Park. Mr. Matias lived in Lincoln Park and...

Eugenia Rodríguez is the mother of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez. She is the youngest of 13 children and was born in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico to Juan Rodríguez and Victoria Flores. They then moved to the Morena section of the barrio of San Salvador,...

Daisy Jiménez, or “La Prieta” as she was called by her father, is one of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez’s sisters. She was born on the seventh floor of what was the Water Hotel at Superior and La Salle Streets in Chicago, where her family was then living....

Román Rodríguez served in the U.S. army during World War II and moved to Chicago’s La Clark neighborhood in 1953. For many years, his wife, Clautilde Jiménez, taught in the Chicago public school system. They also lived in Lincoln Park and were both...

Daisy Jiménez, or “La Prieta” as she was called by her father, is one of José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez’s sisters. She was born on the seventh floor of what was the Water Hotel at Superior and La Salle Streets in Chicago, where her family was then living....